PA puts spanner in plan to oust NMB mayor Athol Trollip

Port Elizabeth - The Council meeting that was due to hear a motion of no confidence in Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trolip has been postponed.

The meeting was postponed after opposition parties, including the ANC, UDM and EFF, walked out of the council meeting following numerous attempts to proceed.

The EFF, AIC, UDM and ANC claimed that the council meeting on Thursday was “illegal”. Opposition councillors said that they had received the agenda late.

Speaker Jonathan Lawack, however, said the agenda was distributed in adequate time.

This was the fourth bid to unseat Trollip from office. At a late-night meeting on Wednesday, opposition parties could not agree on a mayoral candidate.

The latest motion initially had the backing of 61 opposition councillors. However, the impasse between the EFF and the PA has rattled the opposition’s plans.

The EFF won’t support PA Councillor Marlon Daniels as mayor if the motion against Trollip were to succeed. The EFF said that they won’t support a candidate that comes from a party of unrepentant fraudsters.

Daniels said on Thursday morning that he was still part of the coalition and that he had “never left”. He said that the PA decided to walk away from the opposition because he would not be subjected to the EFF’s “abuse”.

He also vowed that his party would never side with the opposition again.